When I was like 10, 10 years old, I would march into the kitchen after they've been keeping me away from it. And I said, Mom, Dad, you are standing in the way of my destiny. If you like people, it's terrific. Of course, the Brady Brunch is a American institution is endured on so many different levels. The point of what the show is and what the show is truly about is how to get along.. How does that work? Now I remember watching thinking I wish that was my family. Sure you guys represented some sense of family than we certainly did have. That's just something you can't act. That's just something you can't make it up. You can't write it. It's there not there. And we had that. Is there any pearl and wisdom that you can share? Get on the ride, stay on the ride, love the ride. It's the only one we get. Very well, I'm so nice to see you. Here we are in the Brady house. So nice to be here. It's kind of like welcome home. Yes, some people ask, you know, if I ever left. And here we are. We're gonna get to the leaving and coming home part. I'm glad to welcome you here. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for arranging this.

This is really cool.

It's a cool... left. And we're going to get to the leaving and coming home part.

I'm glad to welcome you here. Yeah, thank you. And thank you for arranging this. This is really cool. It's a cool thing for our show. Yeah. Thank you. Have you ever heard of this term I can never say correctly. Simulacra. Do you know that term? Simulacra. Yeah. It sounds like it simulates lacra. Cut.

What the concept of simulacra is, I first heard about it in science fiction. It's the idea, it's a copy for which there is no original. And the example I always use is like if you've ever been to a 50s style diner, it's the idealized version of a 50s diner,

but it never really existed in the way that you, like there's denys that have lived.

Right. So it's the idea of like, it's an imprecisistic vision of what it would have been like to be in a 50s diner, but it's not like the Chrysler building, which is authentic, and that ardeco kind of style.

And so in a way this is a simulacra because it is an imitation and there is an original, but it's not the original never really existed as a television. Exactly right. And I was going to make that point as the difference being that that set never ever existed as a house. So this becomes its own unique and original sort of yeah structure. It's crazy because it strikes me as particularly American that here we have a home that everybody knew the outside because of the television show. But now it's been built up on the inside to actually represent the original TV set and you've had a big hand in it. And Christopher from the show all of us did.

All of us participated.

That's amazing.

All six kids, which is remarkable, we're all still active and around and you might even say camera ready, which is kind of nice. And still good friends. That's amazing. We'll get to that. Okay. And Matt just say about the house too. Yeah, please. Yeah. The biggest difference for us, when I come in, because it feels comfortable, but it has a ceiling. I see. And we never had a ceiling on the sound stage. So that makes it feel kind of, you know, contained in a different way. Yeah, I know because you were involved and think you gave us a little tour before we started. Do you find yourself sort of comparing your memory

of the set versus, and I know you said they blew up photos to close, but like you said, this has two last stares and do you find yourself almost phasing between memory, like what you remember and then this is a real place, but it was a real place to it was just a set. The experience, it just, I absorb the experience and it's a lifetime. Growing, yeah. Changing, seeing, being. And you come into this and it's like, wow, it's a crash of memories and experiences at different stages. And these really vulnerable stages, we started this series. I was 14 years old. And we finished and went off the air when I had just turned 20. So all those teenage years and then Susan Olson, Cindy, we started when she was seven. She's 12. I mean, big stages of our lives and this represents it. Well, plus there's the fascination and of course the Brady Bunch is a American institution is endured on so many different levels, you know, like the word we use these days is meta. You know, it becomes a microcosm of broken families creating new families with, you know, parents from divorces and that was always the subtext of the show. So in a way, and here we are, we're still examining the phenomenon of the show so many years later and you've had the interpersonal experience of being in the show, out of the show, and in many ways you're kind of back in the show, but you're also in charge of what happens with that narrative. Yes, a bit, a bit. Can I ask, sorry, because I'm fascinated by that. How much control do you feel you have of that narrative? Because obviously somebody owns the Brady Bunch intellectual property. When I talked to Mickey Dolan, he was like, every time I go out and tour, I have to, you know, I have to still pay whoever screen gems to use the monkey's name. You know, like how much authorship do you feel you have over the story? A wide vast amount of it. They have our studio, Sherwood Schwartz, the copyrights, all of that. It's clear what we own it don't own. I don't own the character. I don't own the character name. I own my participation in the show. I don't know the brand, the Brady Bunch, but I can use it to market if I want to. Barry Williams of the, in the star of whatever.

So, and with the house, this has,

just become a national historic landmark,

which gives it a kind of both validation and relevance.

And it's gonna stay this way.

So, you know, we're working to look how we can make it

more accessible to people and we're using it

to, for, to benefit charities and raise money for charities. And our custodian Tina Trehan has been very, very helpful and oriented toward that. So we're trying to continue that kind of brand. And for viewers who wouldn't understand, this is an actual house on an actual sort of You know, L.A. Suburb and Street. I get's and we're not done on some movie sets somewhere. This is like a real home now It's no leaves. It's the facade. It's the house that we saw. Yeah, so that's even crazy Yeah, right. Get a gemetta politics The other thing I thought of and I started to get too spiritual this early but I can I can't never say this word properly, but Kwan, you know what a Kwan is. No. It's kind of, I think it's a Buddhist concept. The most famous one is what is the sound of one hand clapping? Not much. But you have to try it. They're unsolvable parables. Right. I think we do have the idea. And I think the Brady phenomenon is a Kwan in its own way. it's an unsolvable parables. I think we do have the idea. And I think the Brady phenomenon is a co-on in its own way. It's an unsolvable parable because if you went back to, it was sure which works, right? So if you went back in a time machine and you were 14 years old and you set, you guys don't say, listen, literally 50 something years from now, people are still going to be fascinated. There's gonna be a real Brady house. There'll have been various revivals. There'll still be a high level interest in the stars of the show. Books, you know, you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I would have just laughed. Yeah, would have blown your mind. You would have been like, there's how. And by the way, there was no, there was certainly precedence for nostalgia in American culture.

Mm-hmm.

You know, Dick Kavett famously would bring out glorious ones and Betty Davis.

And they would talk about old MGM, Irving Thalberg and all that stuff.

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